An investigation into the failure of the Student Loan Company to properly process applications has revealed the disaster could be repeated later this year.
Spending watchdog the National Audit Office said that failures of oversight from the company's board, and from Mandelson's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills …

Saw this on BBC this morning.

They had an interview with the head of the Student Loans Company - what a sleazy, typical stereotype of a senior civil servant he was. He attemped to weasel out of every question posed to him, not by the legendary Jeremy Paxman, but by Charlie Stait, the Friday morning stand-in for Bill Turnbull.

He was questioned on whether he and his management would receive any bonuses for their abysmal performance last year, and he weaseled out saying "any bonuses would reflect performance", he weaseled out when he was asked if he'd resign if the same problems arose this year, and it appears their solution to the problem with late processing of student loans was to hire more non-executive directors and managers - as if either of those two groups of people ever solved a fucking operational problem anywhere ever!!!

For real?

Assuming you're being serious that's a rather twattish thing to do. Can you think of a good reason why the entire nation should fund your investment plans - do we get any kind of return on the investment we made on your behalf?

Never mind 'erm'

SLC

My partner works for a local university in the loans and bursaries department and deals with SLC on a daily basis. They have been being told for months (by various different universitities) that their plans are unfeasible, brittle and liable to failure and they have simply ignored everything they've been told and ploughed on regardless.

If it weren't for the fact that it's not the SLC that will be massively inconvenienced it would be laughable. I can't see many of the poorer students laughing about this though.

Knock on effects

The situation may have changed, but the Benefits Agency treat a student loan as income for a period equivilant to the length of your course, but starting from the date you receive the money. So if your loan shows up 6 months late and you can't get a job on graduation, you can't claim benefits, even if you used the loan to repay the debts run up while waiting for your application to be processed.

SLC incompetence

One small insight suggests that SLC are a hopeless shower.

A reasonable proportion of students end up accepted by their second-choice university. How does SLC handle this change?

SLC get the applicant's First-choice and Second-choice offer details from UCAS - so students should be able to tell them "I am going to my Second choice university" by a few clicks on their online system.

Not so - SLC's online system requires the student to download a (badly designed) "Change of Circumstances" form - 8 pages long, requiring lots of information that the student has already provided to SLC. The student then visits their Post Office to send it off (the form is too fat to go as a standard letter). And then they wait two to four weeks for it to be processed manually.

I think you're all missing the point

A certain non elected Lord made a tidy sum by giving this job to SLC, so we should all be grateful. And the SLC board made sure he got the money in a timely fashion, so should all get nice bonuses too.

It seems..

.. we have exactly what the government wanted to give students. A kick up the arse for being a burden on society.

The government knew this system would not work but went ahead any way and this will continue into next year with SLC making a minimal investment in the extra staff needed (if the original setup had worked) to process the additional work they can expect, while claiming to have made a significant investment in staff.

Shame SLC where not in charge of the replacement expences scam which sprang seamlessly into being when the old scam was exposed. If that had happened we would have saved a shed load of cach as PM's strugeld to get their snowts in the new trouth.

SYSTEM?? FAIL

Do college, meeja studies or something worthwhile, whatever

get a mc job after.

SLC WILL steal from you.

Change bank accounts and default on agreed repayments/SLC thefts.

go to court.

SLC will not sent any reprasentatives - and that will not piss the courts off in the slightest, at least it will not have donr on the 100 occasions they have failed to send any reprasentatinve this week :-)

friendly chat with magistrate who's day is wasted just like yours.

so says beak, what can you afford?

ten bob a week says i

done says beak

they have been says i

£1800 loan will be repaid in 75 years.

no intrest and no more theiving from my account. all handled via courts :-)

Magistrates

If it's a civil court you attend when the SLC tries to recover money, then that's not a magistrate, it's a judge.

A judge is legally qualified, typically a degree in Law, a professional. A magistrate is supposedly an upstanding member of the public that doesn't have legal qualifications. The magistrates deal in criminal court cases. Judges deal in county court - civil cases and serious criminal cases in the county court.

I suspect that non-payment of the loan would result in a civil court case in the county court and hence a judge...as most cases for non-payment of debt do. However, given the Labour government's propensity for liking crminal law, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility they've made non-payment of the loan to the SLC a criminal matter..and requires a magistrate to ajudicate on. But I think it's more likely it's a civil matter.

Production line conveyer job, nobody sweeping the floor

From an interview seen on BBC TV, it seems like a re-run of the DEFRA Single Farm Payment fiasco: application goes down a production line, operatives peck at it as it goes past, nobody does anything if it falls on the floor, can't find out where it is. Blair created a policy called Information Assurance, but those who let these service contracts do not have a clue about implementing quality methods.